


All the Stories You Will Leave

by eternal_song



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Afterlife, Allusions to Major Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 13:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15973691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternal_song/pseuds/eternal_song
Summary: Before they go to find the Pharaoh's memories, he makes Yūgi a promise. Eventually, they fulfill it together.Inspired by Bastille's "Laughter Lines"





	All the Stories You Will Leave

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Laughter Lines" by Bastille.

“Yūgi, what’s so special about this place?”

The Pharaoh floated alongside Yūgi, watching the boy as he wandered along a path in the wooded park he had brought them to. The boy glanced over to the spirit and gave him a small, genuine smile.

“I just think it’s peaceful,” he said, “And I think we could use a little of that, after everything that’s happened. Don’t you, Pharaoh?”

The Pharaoh nodded, letting his gaze wander through the trees to the clear sky above. Here, in the middle of the forested area in this park, you might never know you were in the middle of the urbanized Domino City but for the faint sounds of traffic filtering between the trunks. The midday sunlight filtered through the broad green leaves, leaving a dappled pattern of light and shadows on the path and Yūgi’s shoulders.

“This is one of my favorite places to come when I need to be alone,” Yūgi continued after a few minutes of silence. “Well, when I’m not hiding in my room. I used to come here a lot when… I mean, before I finished the Puzzle.”

 _Before he had friends_ , the Pharaoh thought, easily able to read what his partner wasn’t saying. _Before he got caught up in a millennia-old battle of good and evil._

“Come on, Other Me, don’t get distracted. We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

Yūgi gave him that same smile, but didn’t answer. The Pharaoh decided that he wasn’t impatient enough to press the question, so he contented himself with following Yūgi as the boy wove through the dirt trails. At length, they reached an open, grassy area with a large tree stump in the middle. Yūgi led them over and sat down on its edge, feet dangling as they just barely fell short of reaching the ground. The stump was easily large enough for the both of them, so the Pharaoh arranged himself so that he appeared to be sitting next to his host. He raised an eyebrow at the boy, but Yūgi’s eyes were closed as he tilted his face up to the sunlight. A peaceful smile graced his face, so the spirit decided to let him take his time.

His patience was rewarded when, after a few minutes of silence, Yūgi spoke up again.

“The story goes that this tree was planted all the way back in the feudal era.”

“Oh?” The Pharaoh prompted. He didn’t actually know how long ago that was, because he never really paid attention to Yūgi’s history homework.

“Yeah. When I was ten, it finally died, and they had to cut it down before it fell and hurt anyone.” Yūgi rubbed his hand along the weathered wood, fingers tracing the rings. “It’s not as old as you are by a long shot, but there’s something fascinating about being around something that witnessed so much history. Like, if I could only look hard enough, I could find out some of its secrets.”

“Everything is a puzzle to you, isn’t it?” The Pharaoh said, grinning cheekily. He knew that he had no room to talk, but he could hardly pass up the opportunity to tease Yūgi in a rare moment when he wasn’t feeling self-conscious or insecure. The other boy just nodded, his grin echoing his other self’s.

“Of course! I used to climb it before, but afterwards when Grandpa would bring me here I would try to count all of the rings to learn how old it was.”

“And did you succeed?”

Yūgi huffed.

“No,” he admitted. “I always lost count somewhere around two hundred.” he pointed to an area about halfway between the heartwood and the bark. “Right around here, I would get bored and make Grandpa take me to the playground instead.”

A genuine laugh bubbled out of the Pharaoh’s chest.

“Well, partner, do you want to try again? I’ll help.”

 

* * *

 

They made it to three hundred and forty seven, but neither of them could be sure that they hadn’t skipped a ring or two somewhere. They lay stretched out on the grass together, Yūgi clutching the Puzzle tightly.

“I can’t believe you’re ten times older than the oldest tree in Domino,” he said. The Pharaoh sat up and looked at him incredulously.

“I can’t believe you’re comparing me to a tree. Besides, the Millenium Puzzle is, all things considered, a little more durable and well-protected.” He gave Yūgi his best “offended” face, but Yūgi only returned it with a pensive look.

“Do you think that… I mean, after we get your memories back…” he trailed off, appearing to be searching for the right words. The Pharaoh sat up straighter. Yūgi bit his lip before finally continuing. “Will you be free from the puzzle? Will you be reincarnated, the way Ishizu says that Kaiba was?”

The Pharaoh pondered this a bit. How long had Yūgi been thinking about this?

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I don’t remember enough of my people’s beliefs to know.”

Yūgi nodded, looking unsatisfied by his answer.

“What brought this up, Yūgi?”

It took another few moments for the boy to answer, but his voice remained steady when he did.

“I was just wondering if we would ever meet again.” Yūgi’s knuckles were white around the Puzzle. The Pharaoh leaned over him, bracing a hand on either side of his partner’s head.

“Yūgi, our souls are tied together in a way that most people could never imagine. I promise you that I’ll see you again someday, and you can tell me all about what I missed.” He leaned in as if to press their foreheads together, unable to truly touch. “And I’d better find out that I missed at least eighty years. You’re not allowed to follow me until you’re older and more wrinkled than Grandpa.”

“As wrinkled as a mummy?” Yūgi asked, voice watery. The Pharaoh nodded, his golden bangs phasing through Yūgi’s.

“I’ll see you then, Partner.” If either had tears in their eyes, neither of them mentioned it.

 

* * *

 

It was over. Yūgi had won the Ceremonial Duel by sealing away Monster Reborn and with it any chance Atem had at staying with him. It was the best course of action, and he knew that he couldn’t keep the Pharaoh from his own rebirth, but— but. He still didn’t want to lose him.

As Yūgi knelt on the ground, tears dripping onto his clenched hands, he saw a pair of booted feet appear in front of him. A hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Atem crouched before him to address him as an equal.

“Yūgi. A champion doesn’t belong on his knees.”

The tears kept falling as Atem congratulated him on his victory, and Yūgi nearly choked on the words as they came out.

“By defeating you, I’ve sent you away. For good.”

“No, you have opened the door for me.” Atem’s smile was gentle and full of gratitude as he explained all that Yūgi had done for him and what his victory meant for him. As the Pharaoh pulled them up to their feet, Yūgi finally managed to force out some approximation of what he really wanted to say.

“I’m gonna miss you.”

“You do realize we’ll never truly be apart, right?” Atem said, that infuriating and knowing smile back on his face. Yūgi made a bewildered noise, wondering how that could be true when his other self was leaving him. “The gift of kindness you’ve given me, and the courage I’ve given you, will remain with us. And that will forever bind us together.”

“Right.” Yūgi nodded. The Eye of Wadjet lit up behind them, and Atem let go of Yūgi’s shoulders in order to step forward and declare himself.

Yūgi almost hoped that his friends’ impassioned goodbyes would convince Atem to stay, but he knew that keeping him in the world of the living would be cruel.

“Remember what you promised me, Other Me,” he said softly, but he could tell that Atem heard and understood what he meant. Then, louder, he finally called out, “We’ll never forget you!”

With that, Atem strode through the doors to the afterlife with a parting thumbs-up for them. As they watched, he transformed from a mirror of Yūgi to the proud pharaoh of old, skin darkening and clothes morphing from a school jacket to a regal cape. Beyond him, they could see the figures of Atem’s friends from millennia past— friends he could finally remember and go home to. As the doors slammed shut, Yūgi could swear that he heard Atem’s voice speaking to him one last time.

“I’ll see you in the future, Yūgi.”

He nodded and, tuning out the sounds of his friends crying behind him, said, “Well, Pharaoh… Goodbye.”

_Goodbye for now._

 

* * *

 

Anzu mourned the loudest, but she wasn’t the only one affected by Atem’s parting. Honda and Jonouchi tried to put on brave faces, but Yūgi could see how hard it was for them to have lost a friend they respected and looked up to as much as they had Atem. Weeks later, Jonouchi confided to Yūgi that he felt as if he had lost not only a friend, but a mentor as well— understandable, with all of the dueling advice that Atem and Yūgi had both given him over the course of their friendship. Yūgi hadn’t known what to say that wouldn’t make one of them cry, so he settled on a soft “me, too” and hugged his best friend.

Bakura, too, seemed affected by the loss of Atem and his own resident spirit, though in a different way. He would sometimes come and sit quietly with Yūgi during lunch hour or after school. Neither felt the need to say much of anything, because they both knew the other was feeling suddenly alone in the vastness of their own head with no one to share the space with. Once, Yūgi wondered aloud if Malik felt the same after his dark personality was sealed away, and Bakura confessed to having spoken with him about it, but he declined to elaborate on the conversation. The last thing Yūgi wanted to do was make his friend feel uncomfortable, now that he was finally beginning to recover from years of possession and waking to only the faintest memories of the atrocities his body had been used for, so he let the matter rest.

Sometimes, Yūgi would catch himself wondering what Atem was doing in the afterlife, or how he would have reacted to something that happened to him. He found himself imagining the Pharaoh’s commentary and encouragement so often that it began to blend into his normal thoughts. Perhaps that had been what Atem had meant, about the courage he’d given Yūgi always staying with him. He thought about how Atem had been when the puzzle was first solved; wild, untamed, and driven mad by millennia of solitude, and contrasted that with the memory of his last glimpse of the regal King the spirit had become. Perhaps Atem really had taken Yūgi’s kindness with him as well.

Years came and went, but Yūgi barely noticed the passage of time until one morning when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. At some unknown point through the years, he had developed crow’s feet around his eyes and laughter lines around his mouth. His black hair was shot through with white. With a laugh, he realized that he was beginning to resemble his grandfather.

He wondered if Grandpa and Atem had met up in the afterlife, or if modern-day Japanese men went to a different place than ancient Egyptian kings.

 

* * *

 

A cold breeze blew across Yūgi’s face as he opened his eyes. He seemed to be lying on wet ground under a blanket of starlight, with no memory of how or when he had gone outside in the first place.

He sat up and took in his surroundings, too bemused to scrounge up anything resembling panic. He appeared to be laying on a riverbank, nestled among tall reeds. To his right, bobbing gently on the current, was a boat.

“Oh,” was all he could say. He definitely recognized this scene— he’d certainly studied too much ancient Egyptian lore not to— but it seemed a little far-fetched to imagine that this was actually the Duat he’d read about.

“I suppose I must be dead,” he said to himself, finally working up a little bit of concern deep within himself. He was old enough that the idea itself wasn’t a huge surprise, but waking up and finding himself in the afterlife of a long-dead religion was disorienting, even for someone who had seen as much supernatural weirdness as Yūgi had. He wandered over to the boat, staring at it for a long moment before deciding that the afterlife wouldn’t have dropped him off right next to Ra’s boat if it didn’t intend for him to borrow it. It took a moment to figure out how to climb in, but as soon as he did, it began moving on its own.

A vibrating sense of anticipation began to build in his chest. If he was here, then would he be able to meet Atem again? Or was he unworthy of sharing the same afterlife as a powerful king who had saved the world? He’d done his best to live a good life, so the Gods couldn't just throw him to Ammit, could they?

Just as he began to truly work himself into a panic, the boat stopped and he heard the voice of a young woman calling to him.

“Ah, you have arrived. I have been waiting for the honor of weighing your heart.”

Yūgi stiffened, turned, and looked into the dark and fathomless eyes of Ma’at.

 

* * *

 

There was a shift in the winds that blew across the low-lying delta of Aaru. Atem felt a pull in his chest, but couldn’t quite figure out the source of it. As morning dawned over the Reed Fields, he noticed a number of people giving him strange, knowing looks. After about the sixth time, he broke down and asked Siamun about it, which was possibly the wrong course of action.

“Siamun, has something happened?” he asked, unable to figure out a more tactful way to broach the subject. The old man’s face twitched in a mischievous smile that reminded him for all the world of the man’s Japanese look-alike.

“Well, Pharaoh,” he said, “It would seem that Ma’at has judged a new soul to be True of Voice, and Osiris has welcomed him into Aaru.”

Atem blinked. This was, indeed, a strange piece of news. It was extremely rare for souls to come to the Egyptian afterlife anymore— in fact, Atem was pretty sure that up until now, he had been the most recent addition.

“I know that there are plenty of important pharaohs running around in these fields, but perhaps you ought to go be the one to welcome the newcomer,” Siamun said, beginning to wander away. Just as he was about to turn the corner down a hallway, he glanced over his shoulder and smirked at Atem. “Say hello to my grandson for me.”

As the old man walked away, Atem stared at the spot he’d been standing in for several moments before he finally processed what he’d just been told.

“ _What?_ ” he shouted, making to follow, before the implications of Siamun’s— no, Sugoroku’s— and when had he gotten here?— words hit him full on. Grandson. _Yūgi._

Atem barely noticed his mad dash to the Gates of Aaru, but once there he could only stare in wonder as they creaked open to reveal the nervous figure standing on the other side. He looked so small, and barely older than when Atem had left him, but there was a difference in the way he carried himself that spoke of the maturity and wisdom that only come from long years of living. Atem could tell the exact moment Yūgi spotted him as well, because suddenly he was running at the Pharaoh and bowling into him with enough force to nearly knock them both into a nearby stream.

“Yūgi,” Atem breathed out, wrapping his arms around his partner to hold him as tightly as Yūgi did to him.

“Atem!” Yūgi sobbed, face buried into the crook of his other self’s neck. “Atem. I missed you so much.”

Atem had to take a few deep breaths before he could respond.

“And I, you, Yūgi.” He nuzzled his face deeper into Yūgi’s soft spikes of hair.

Neither was sure how long they stood like that. It could have been hours, or mere moments, but finally Yūgi pulled away just enough to look up at Atem through bloodshot eyes. Tears stained his cheeks and his nose was running, but Atem swore he’d never seen anything more wonderful.

“How long has it been?” The Pharaoh asked softly. “Please tell me you didn’t die young like I did. I'm afraid I might have set a bad example there.”

To his immense relief, Yūgi shook his head and laughed.

“It wasn’t quite the eighty years you asked for,” he said, a wry smile quirking on his lips, “But I can confirm that I was _very_ wrinkly by the end.”

“I’m so glad.” Atem returned the smile. “I’m sure you’re bursting with stories of your life, just waiting to be told.”

“Well, I couldn’t disappoint you, now could I?”

Atem found that he couldn’t stop grinning as he leaned in and kissed Yūgi as soundly as he could possibly manage, but Yūgi didn’t seem to be complaining. He was suffering from the same problem, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely self-indulgent, because if Yūgi and Atem don't get to spend their afterlives together after everything, then what is even the point?
> 
> I didn't actually do a whole lot of research on the Ancient Egyptian afterlife, because that wasn't the focus of the story. If I got something wrong, please let me know.
> 
> I'm mostly working from manga canon and disregarding DSOD here, but the dialogue from the parting scene is almost entirely from the English dub of the anime, because that's how I first experienced the series and Dan Green's voice still has a special place in my heart.


End file.
